26.4.12 - 19.4.12

26.4.12 - they suck in on the dense clouds of green gas and then crawl to the bottom of their tunnels and spit out their harvest - a chemical reaction in their lungs turns the gas into liquid crystal.

25.4.12 - the crystals serve many purposes - insulation, phosphorescence, incubation for eggs which hatch every season into a new troop of identical xenomorphs with an identical and shared consciousness.  An unspoken unity in purpose.  Until the New Form is hatched with it's large cumbersome brain and small, useless lungs.

24.4.12 - Short advert break:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/97792569/original-art-voidscape-collage-size-a5
Original A5 black and white collages made to order for £5.

23.4.12 - A basis for the start of a story - though it might not be at the start but just something in the background of some kind of larger world building.  I imagine it to end up being some amalgamation of Star Wars, Ants and The Fountainhead (though I'd rather it didn't end up like any of these but it would be good if it ended up being something).

22.4.12 - further first draft drivelling - the word finds it difficult to connect into the next word - connect word connect.

21.4.12 - Grinch looking foot soldiers of the Hive consciousness - wasn't planning on them looking quite so happy.  Never expressionless but always sharing the same expression?
If you had the same expression as everyone else would that be an expression anymore?  Or would it be like wearing the exact same clothes as your best friend?

20.4.12 - some image of one identity living through separate parts.  

19.4.12 - carried out some vague research into insect communication, telepathy and how people work together towards the best possible outcome for everyone... came to no definite conclusions but saw some very nice diagrams.

18.4.12 - 13.4.12

18.4.12 - Impenetrable red light doesn't suffuse into the surrounding darkness.  Perhaps it is a red object.  Or a light object.  Spheres contain clouds of interlaced light white.

17.4.12 - Already mentioned in a prior blog entry (but no hard in mentioning it again eh?) I opened an Etsy shop today (http://www.etsy.com/shop/GarthSimmons?ref=si_shop) with any luck I'm hoping it'll make me a minor amount of money and dwindle away some of my art materials of which I have far too much.  Considered opening a Folksy shop instead as heard they are a bit better than Etsy but didn't like the fact that Folksy is called Folksy and that people may think I'm one of those Folky people.

16.4.12 -  I hate reincarnation.  I hate the man at the top of the ladder with Enlightenment clutched in his hands refusing to show anyone what it is and saying "you just have to feel it, I can't explain it, one day you'll just know what the answer is. Now give me all your clothes and bend over, and if you don't live your live by my rules you'll die and come back as Ian Beale". 

If reincarnation exists it is soul slavery and in the land of transmigration all the souls at the top are laughing at the sad faces spiralling from one body to the next - clueless to the idea that they have ever lived before.

15.4.12 - one doorway leads to another doorway even if it's the doorway you came in by - which would involve spinning round especially if you went into somewhere particularly dodgy and full of aggressive staring. 
Pillars of nothing new but still filled with the same threat of a prison like repetition.

14.4.12 - Idea for a novel - a disabled member of an insect hive intelligence (missing it's antennae therefore having no way to become one with the hive intelligence (one identity operating through millions of bodies) so it had to build it's own identity whilst completely isolated in a crowd of everyone) - it runs away from home to Polygonia where it searches for itself - it is very suggestible and joins a religious cult (worshipping the mighty Booming) but becomes as unhappy and persecuted as before so becomes a musketeer instead... (or something else - obviously haven't worked out the full plot for this book idea).   

13.4.12 - in a drift of connective disconnection... vague ideas of the future and of the here and now flipping through a million slides far too quickly making a complete blur without understanding of a single shape and complete vacuum of meaning as days blur into each other like smudged pencil - sharp edges around the significant events glow and scream "remember me" - then we forget - only to remember years later when we recollect the events of yesteryear with a complete feeling of alienation from the person we used to be.

Etsy shop opening and £5 A5 images available to order.

Finally gotten round to starting up my own Etsy shop - even put together a rather banal shop banner and title:

I'm sure I'll think of a much better name for it later but nothing really sprung to mind immediately - suggestions are more than welcome though I'll likely come up with something better myself at some point, or perhaps just keep with the above because I quite like the simplicity.

The first items I have for sale are black and white prints in the style of the two displayed here - these are all going to be made to order and each will be put together in a different, unique and unpredictable way each time.

The selling price is about £5 including post and packaging.
I am going to branch out into slightly more expensive versions which will include colour.  I've sold two of these black and white versions already - it's possibly the most affordable original art (unless you make your own) on the internet so if you can share this post via Facebook, Twitter or whatever means available to you then I can start sending these images out to people and make just a little bit of money - it'll help my self esteem at the very least.

Anyway enough self promotion (though is it ever enough?)
Click here and have a look - if you can spare a small sum of money then make an order to help save my very slightly endangered confidence

5.4.12 - 12.4.12

12.4.12 - crash landed, taken over, synthesised.
It became part of our blood and gave us limited success and limited compassion.
Guiding voices and labels - avoid the people who know all the answers.
Remain subjective we are all a host - it is digging it’s nails inside your face and inside my hands.
Watch out.  The pain was there before you were born and after you died.
Question could be: where did it land first? 

11.4.12 - a suspended blond wig over the many hollows of a brief dying sun.  The above image can in little way be associated with this text.

10.4.12 - went through a short phase of loving gravestones - they stick out organised but crooked like horrible teeth - I used to really like Edgar Allen Poe's gravestone because it's one of the more perfectly shaped traditional gravestones.  If I die wealthy enough to waste money on a really good gravestone I would quite like it to be made of glow in the dark plastic - not sure of the colour but currently I think the best colour for it would be red.

9.4.12 - Procession of line repetition reputation resolution separated colours fragmentary the fractured fragments forced into cubicles two dimension - flat fractal.

8.4.12 - Waiting for a twitchy computer response feeling like a flickering eyelash watching and waiting of the bionic organic the connection between all these interfaces spelling out obvious words.  Two points of isolated time a simple motion of spinning.

7.4.12 - tooth decay is invisible on the offset - I have great white teeth recently due to a clean up at the dentist - my gum disease was a con created by my terrible ex dentist.  Though I can feel bits of junk food accumulate between my teeth sometimes which can't really be doing me any good - the only cure for which is to stick tiny interdental brushes between them which could probably scratch them.  Is anything designed perfectly or are things designed to break down and slowly damage what they are meant to protect?  Dyson Hoovers are the only exception that spring to mind.

6.4.12 - more pulling apart of collages of canvases - some fragments can be seen throughout the next few entries... everything comes in use eventually - except for self absorbed bullies and dictators.

5.4.12 - read my friend Roger's first chapter of his book on a train journey - was worried before hand that I might not like it or that it would needs tonnes of improvement and that I'd either have to be brutally honest or pretend to love it - this has been the case when reading most stories written by friends so I was really pleased to say that it was really really enjoyable to read with some very vivid and funny description and characterisation.  And it has robots in it.  And a goat.

non-documentary and some horror falling through the fuggiest of voids

These photos were taken unsuspectingly whilst I was making a new and rather large piece of artwork.  I'm not normally photographed whilst making my work - I'm not usually actually with people whilst I'm doing my work - especially when I'm in my boxroom - so thought I'd include these images to my blog because they are the closest I've ever felt to looking like a documentary. 

This blog is pretty much entirely about my developing ideas and artwork it seems only right that they be included and are followed with the finished work of art.  The process of producing this artwork included tearing bits off a very large collage made on an old and warped canvas which I'd dumped long forgotten and then decided to make something with.  Art does tend to clutter the place up, so any ideas for saving space always appeals to me and making new work over old work.  Working over this old canvas gave me the opportunity to experiment with wallpaper paste, paint, marker pens, and leftover detritus from my installation last year.  These three photos are just of me putting the finishing touches to this picture with my favourite marker pens.  You can see it took at least long enough for the sun to traverse the sky to a point where it was glaring right through my window - highlighting the moment that I felt that I'd nearly finished and also just before the photographer spilt some of her foundation on the top middle of the picture - which i just rubbed into the image with a calm and lackadaisical disregard.

I think the results of this is a good sign that I need to start doing this with all my other old images on canvas - most of which are at least 3 years old and mainly stuck down with poundland glue sticks - no point in holding onto those - get some new work done on top of all the old stuff and stick to my idea that my art is one developing organism that should be allowed to grow and alter - and that there is no such thing as a finished piece of work for me, that everything I do is part of a becoming of something else.  Until I finally do reach some terrifying finite point.

This is the as final as final can be at the moment result:

To me it looks like some sort of living ruin built on the crumbled remains of a skull on a 2d schematic of swirling static with hints of dark night shadows - lines erupting upwards through the industry of blood and soot. It's organic and representational - the middle of the fixed up skull is going inwards into some hell mouth - the industry within is a death industry and the red outbursts are ghosts of effort and progress wailing to nowhere.  It also remains a living circuit - a decaying tooth submerged in a dirty skewed gum bleeding through the fissures.  There is actually something there and this is a sign that my head is getting out of the fugginess of voids and death and into some form of grisly representation.... this picture looks like it is some horror coming out of a void.

Maybe I should tread carefully or something from a HP Lovecraft story is going to come down from the stars and eat me all up.  Again.  So feel free to share any nicer interpretations you may have.

4.4.12 - 26.3.12

4.4.12 - nodes of nerves bloodied in highlighted reaction - drowning under a positive glow of health though containing a repetitive uncertainty.

3.4.12 - Stemming from the past - spider limbs connecting architectural non-nuance to previous shambles.  Bricks and archways and connective design - no central body to speak of.

2.4.12 - a stained glass heap of attempts reaching to inaccurate line meetings - the same printers.

1.4.12 - Blocks of everything - though every finite number can be reduced to zero meaning everything can be reduced to a singular sharp point - if that point can be reachable from the block I'm stood on now then perhaps I could send a letter or step into any time or place I like.  If this is achievable through maths then I'm likely to be unable to achieve it - I'm sure that none of my talents can allow me to make pan dimensional leaps - though if a government scientist or alien is reading this I am volunteering to be your test subject.
P.S  Try not to disperse my atoms into little nowheres. 

31.3.12 - finished a very nice canvas image (on an old and slightly warped canvas) will blog about that separately in a day or so.  Went to the Chorlton Green Festival and discovered that some ethical posturing is far too much for me - I perform some very intensive recycling - sending frank stamps to charity, putting every bit of unused paper - no matter how small - into the correct bins... also compulsively picking up discarded cans and bottles off the street... but what I noticed at the Green Festival is lots of very small, thin, malnourished dogs.  One of which was actually trying to eat himself he was so desperate for meat.  I do question forcing anything to be vegan - and also the breast feeding colouring paper may be a little bit much for young children.
Learnt the rules of poker after many years - lost £2... also proved my geography skills are the same as Jade Goody's by thinking that Scandinavia was a country.

30.3.12 - My monthly planner for March is disassembled as everything I needed to do is now done.  It pays to be annoyingly organised.  Even if it is annoying for myself and everyone else.  Also, when do I get paid for it?

29.3.12 - sadly a book cover project I was working on has been postponed for a while.  Hope the author get's better soon.

28.3.12 - cutting up smaller print outs of collages done a few weeks back (see here)  some leftovers used here.

27.3.12 - the past used in the future to reconstruct the present - sometimes my diary works backwards into itself and something I cut up a day or two before gets used again.  Or gets pasted into the day previous.  Past events do get reinvented by memory.

26.3.12 - the red marker from 25.3.12 has seeped through into the page behind it - are all my compositions accidental and my creativity is just a blind falling my limbs flail and hopefully managed to glue something together to something else as I fall down an endless tunnel of paper.